Outdoor Stage Roof

Help us bring aerial dance and expand the performing arts in the Hudson Valley!

Celebrating more than 20 years of Healing Arts, Festivals, Music, Dance, Flying Trapeze & exploring the Mythic Imagination at the Center for Symbolic Studies.

In 1994 the Center for Symbolic Studies inherited the center stage of Woodstock94. We were already celebrating Beltane, Samhain and Imbolc, 3 of the 4 cross-quarter festivals of the year, with a handful of dedicated and playful friends. We had small events with fantastic music, lore and dance. When we inherited the Woodstock94 stage our intimate gathering began to grow. Now, 20 years later it has become the oldest annual festival in Rosendale NY having hosted 100’s of children’s performance events through the Vanaver Caravan & other wonderful local organizations, music concerts, classes, professional seminars, meditation groups traditional wisdom demonstrations & much more.

Rebuilding the Stage

The OutdoorStage at Stone Mountain Farm has become an international gathering place for traditional wisdom, culture & dance to flourish and grow.

With the assistance of architecture and engineering team Alex Wade, Bob Godwin & master builder Severin Winter, we have the completed architect’s drawings for the roof over the OutdoorStage, with engineer stamp, and building permit from the Town of Rosendale. Last year we put in the foundation for the new roof, and with the help of our dedicated volunteer carpenter team (directed by Jim Carmen) we have a brand new floor on the stage. We are now assembling our 4 spectacular roof trusses, milled from Stone Mountain Farm hardwood: To come lend a hand, contact us here.

Our goal is to shape the Center into a full time performing and healing arts center where artists, healers and teachers can come from all over the world to explore and expand their craft. The roof over the stage is a step in this process.

With the roof over the stage we can extend our performance season, bring aerial theater to the Hudson Valley, expand our circus arts program, & create cover for the audience so we can hold events, rain or shine. In collaboration with AiRealistic LLC we have an amazing roster of performances, camps, films and workshops lined up with artists from Cirque Du Soleil, Dragone, Fuerza Bruta, De La Guarda, Pilobolus, Momix, The Metropolitan Opera and more. We are expanding our youth out-reach program to include these workshops and will provide special discounts to local students. CSS has the potential to become the aerial arts epicenter for the East coast.

Our Goal: Raise $50,000 for the roof construction by Beltane this spring.

Become a supporting member: With a donation of $100 or more you will receive free admission to Beltane & MidSummer Festival

Become a founding member: With a donation of $250 or more you will receive a romantic & fun aerial dance class for 2 under the new roof (See a demonstration on You Tube here), or admission to a workshop of your choice in the upcoming year at CSS.

Become a structural member: With a donation of $1000 or more you will receive free admission to both festivals, 4 aerial partner classes or admission to 4 workshops of your choice at CSS.

How can you help?

Make a tax deductible donation now!

Join us, spread the word, ask your friends! Everything helps.

This final funding push will cover the costs of actual construction, as follows:

Remaining materials including all the hardware, special steel plates for the trusses and truss-related engineering fees.

Labor to complete milling of our very own Stone Mountain Farm timber on the CSS WoodMizer sawmill (most of which is already stacked on the site, and the labor paid).

Materials and labor to assemble the core of the roof structure (including the impressive thirty-two to thirty-five foot tall bents and 50-foot plus wide trusses which provide the core of the Stage structure.

Our professional construction crew, who are ready to build the support towers.

Rental fee for the crane to raise the trusses.

Repay the interest-free loan generously provided to purchase the stage’s metal roofing, which is already stacked and waiting on the site.

Your donations have already:

In the summer of 2007 alone, you raised almost $3000 toward rebuilding our original Woodstock’94 Stage platform (Remember the hard work & fun? See the video).

And your contributions assisted with paying the labor for the timbering and milling of those handsome stacks of Stone Mountain timbers which you can see on the ground by the Outdoor Stage platform.

And most of all it is you, our CSS community of supporters, including our wonderful team of pro’s: foresters and sawmill operators, architects, engineers, builders, carpenters, computer techs & office staff who have often contributed your skills for free & always for less than your accustomed fees–

And you who always show up on work days with your quick wits, willing hands & ready backs–

It is all of you who have provided the essential volunteer working force which keeps CSS projects & programs going & will see our Stage Roof rise:

Thank you all!

Donation Form

Donate to the CSS Stage Project

We'd love your help in the creation of a new stage. If you'd like to contribute monetarily, please fill out the following form. Thank you so much!
(after you fill out this form you will be forwarded to our donation page circa paypal)

Your Name

Email

Stage Donation Amount*

If you'd like to donate to a specific aspect of the stage or have any other comments please let us know here.

Once you click submit, you will be forwarded to our Paypal page where you can pay with a credit card of your choice.

The Center for Symbolic Studies is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) healing and performing arts center exploring the psyche through the window of myth. Our mission is to provide a theater of opportunities for conscious myth-making, leading to personal growth and communal awareness. We see this as essential to a creative participation in the richness and variety of human cultures and in our extended ecological family.

"Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, the arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep all boil up from the basic magic ring of myth."— Joseph Campbell

Volunteer for Beltane!

For those of you who love being an integral part of Beltane, click above to sign up and get your spot now!

Help Support CSS

We need your support! Come help make the Center a thriving place where people can fulfill their dreams. There are so many ways to volunteer contact us now to find out how.